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from: www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001392256
NEW YORK -- In one of her rare Sunday Magazine features, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd this week offes a lengthy take on "Modern Girl" behavior, tackling such hot issues as "burning you bra or padding it" and "splitting the check or letting him pay."
After starting with a look back at the years of feminism and post-feminism since she entered college in 1969, she separates her essay into sections on courtlship, money, power dynamics, Ms. vs. Mrs., movies, women's magazines, and beauty.
She hits today's movies for "retro" treatments of male/female relationships, especially in several recent films where men fall for their maids. The still-single Dowd complains that only now has she learned "that being a maid would have enhanced my chances with men."
While often critical of feminists, she also notes that the femaie ideal today is becoming a "sex kitten," in other words: "I am woman; see me strip."
She concludes with a look down the road to 2030: "It's easy to picture a surreally familiar scene when women realize they bought into a raw deal and old trap. With no power or money or independence, they'll be mere domestic robots, lasering their legs and waxing their floors--or vice versa--and desperately seeking a new Betty Friedan."
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